Tacit
by Haeu
Summary: A short exploration of Kaneki's thoughts after he stabbed Banjou. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul, at all.**

Kaneki stared blankly into the space before him, grey eyes unfocused, ears deaf to the world. He saw nothing around him, trapped within his own reality. The walls were unimportant. The ground was insignificant. The door didn't exist. The bed was gone. No one was around. Not even the shivering mass of flesh that was his body. Come to think of it, why was he shivering?

It was cold. When is it get cold? Why was it so cold? Where was his warmth? Did his blood rush out of his body, in fear of the monster he had become? Was it frozen in his veins, refusing to move, to circulate, to support the living abomination it inhabited?

His left hand reached up out of instinct more than anything, a crack resounding through the room as he pressed down on his index finger. His eyes saw not a quaint room, but an ocean of blood, a mountain of bodies. In his mind's eye he saw faces. A head of purple hair and bespectacled eyes.

_Rize._

She tried to eat him. He had surpassed her.

A wide eyed, menacing face leaped out from the darkness, a sadistic glee present on its twisted visage.

_Yamori._

Gone like the centipede came out of his ear and just as easily crushed as any centipede. Right? A crawling sensation made itself known to his ear. Countless minuscule legs patterned agains his skin. Sheer disgust wracked his frame, the urge to vomit, to cry out overwhelming. His breathing intensified, panic coating every single inhale and exhale. The centipede wasn't there. It wasn't there, it wasn't there, _oh god it was there. Crawling, writhing, the pain, the pain, __**the pain. Why was a centipede in his ear? Why couldn't he just DIE?!**_

Kaneki's pale hand shot up to his ear, digging around desperately to locate and remove the phantom centipede. Except it wasn't phantom. _There was no way it could have been phantom._

_It was __**right there.**_

Laboured breaths escaped the half-ghoul's lips, hushed cries accompanying them soon after. It couldn't be real. He escaped. Yamori was dead. He made sure of that. He had devoured the ghoul's flesh, after all. Another wave of surging revulsion shot up through his chest, bile rising up Kaneki's throat. Yamori had tasted disgusting... Rotting fish intestines didn't even begin to describe it. Even normally, the urge to empty the contents of his stomach would have been overpowering. In the White-haired ghoul's current state, it was almost enough to cause the his of his mind.

Deep, calming breaths accompanied Kaneki's efforts to_ calm down. _In. Out. The very air tasted repulsing, as if all the fresh air had been stolen away, left bleeding a stomach turning _poison. _

Compared to the flesh of a ghoul, however, it may as well have been a first class meal.

Placating breaths slowed down eventually, their intended effect taking place after a few minutes had ticked by slowly. A few minutes in which Kaneki was reminded of why everyone needed to get away from him. Touka, Hide, Hide, everyone at Anteiku, Banjou, _everybody._ They needed to distance themselves so that he would never have to choose between them. So that he wouldn't need to sacrifice one, or lose both. As a crazed kakuja, he had _stabbed Banjou._ The very power he needed to protect them had turned on them. The result of his cannibalism had so unflinchingly harmed his friend. To be able to shield them, to shield his life, he would need to be alone.

He hated being alone.

**If you hate being alone, make everyone else alone as well.**

_Shut up._

**No one can be lonely when everyone is alone, right?**

_What kind of logic is that?!_

**I'm right, you know. I'm always right. **

_You're wrong. _

The voice in his head intensified its plea for attention, the rattling of chains ever present in Kaneki's ears. It was wrong, he knew, but the way it spun its words was entrancing, drawing him in until he shook himself out of it. An action that was becoming increasingly harder to perform. Tears flowed freely, blurring his vision, but it didn't matter. It wasn't as if he was capable to seeing front of him anyway. If he could see in front of him, then he would have known how to save Ryouko-san.

If he could gaze ahead, then he would have urged his mother to pick him.

But he couldn't, so he was meant to be left alone.

**That makes no sense~!**

_Neither do you. Go away._

**But I'm the only one you have. With me, you're never alone.**

_Go away. Go away. Go away, away, __**away!**_

**Touchy, touchy!**

_SHUT UP!_

Block it out, he urged himself. Turn away, he told himself. Ignore it, he incessantly cried out.

But it was an impossibly difficult task. The thing fed itself on his fear, his anxiety, all of his doubts. The siren's song was more of a mad cackle in this case, insane laughter echoing to the very corners of his mind.

The madness of it all didn't change the fact that it was a still a siren laughing. A siren was impossible to oppose. As such, it was practically irresistible to give in to its desires, to rip out the flesh of everyone in this twisted world.

There was no logic behind its ramblings, the supreme urge to kill plaguing every single action it took. Kaneki would like to deny its existence, to shun it off as something completely different and unrelated to himself. But he couldn't.

Because he too, was a foul creature who needed to feed on others to survive. He had, after all, eaten every single bothersome creature in the Ghoul Restaurant. A one-sided massacre. Their flesh was disgusting, but it furthered his strength. It prevented him from consuming humans.

**So you admit that eating ghouls is better than eating humans? **

_Sacrificing one thing so that another may live._

**Hehe, eating all of those ghouls led to you stabbing Banjou, right?**

_Shut up._

**Aw, this again? How about a maths problem to let the creative juices flow?**

_You make no sense._

**1000 minus 7.**

Kaneki despondently stared once more at the floor, blocking out the chanting of numbers in his mind. The depraved ramblings and occasional bout of laughter in between did nothing to lessen his downcast mindset.

What he wouldn't give for a new Sen Takatsuki book. A new one was set to be released sooner, if he recalled correctly. With all the current events, thinking time was not a commodity he possessed.

**Are you sure you like those books so much? That's what caused you to meet Rize, after all... Hehe...**

_Shut up._

Kaneki curled up on the bed, attempting to reclaim the rest that had eluded him for so long. Madness and panic converted into depression and fatigue over time, his energy used up by the earlier events.

Silence was needed.


End file.
